Monday, August 23, 2010

The Bears signed former Redskin/Chief/Bills clipboard holder Todd Collins today. The 38 year old Collins went to Michigan, so I hate him, and is now the insurance policy in case Hanie can't return before the season starts and Matt Gutierrez is somehow more awful than Todd Collins and Dan LeFevour. LeFevour, who I had high hopes for, is currently staring at a line of 5/20 (25%), 60 yd, 0 TD, 1 INT, 18.8 rating, and would seem an unlikely candidate of doing anything other than a Henry Burris impersonation if forced into a regular season game, so I suppose someone had to be signed off the street.

But why Todd Collins? I know he's been in the system before but outside of one three game stretch in Washington back in 2007 (and you might remember who he padded his stats against that year), he's been a bland, boring, worthless back up quarterback. After 1997 (his only year as a full-time starter when he was the first schmuck to fail miserably in a Bills uniform while trying to replace Jim Kelly), he threw exactly 27 passes over the next decade. He blows.

My point, however, is not that there are better candidates out there for serving as a back up that knows the Martz offense. No, my point is, as I pointed out with the story about Tom Moore and Jim Sorgi last week, if Cutler goes down this team is royally boned anyway, so the Bears should sign up someone interesting who will make the season worth watching, rather than some boring joe like Todd Collins. Some candidates:

JaMarcus Russell- He can throw the football 80 yards and see if Devin Hester or Johnny Knox can run under it, and he help Chris Williams on the line on running plays.

Jeff George- Why not? They did it once before, and Jeff is Still lobbying for someone to sign him. He's also such a notorious asshole that Rick Morrissey would finally think Jay Cutler was a good teammate by comparison, and he made this sweet workout video:

Jeff George, the Kenny Powers of the NFL.Tim Couch- because the man's taken HGH just to get back in the game and he deserves a shot for that kind of commitment. Also because it WASN'T HIS FAULT.

Tommy Maddox- Hear me out on this one. First we have to send Tommy Maddox to the upstart UFL so that he can win the UFL championship. Their season ends in November, so the Bears could sign Tommy in time to give him another chance at being a one shot wonder making a comeback in the NFL after a stint with a shitty alternative pro football league.

Jamie Foxx- If he's good enough for the Miami Sharks, he's good enough for me.

Brian Griese- Nah, I'm just fucking with you. Todd Collins is a better quarterback than Brian Griese could have been even if he was actually Bob Griese's son and not the child of the Faulknerian idiot manchild who mowed their grass and whom Bob's lonely wife cottoned to.

Matt Grothe- You may not know who Matt Grothe is. That's fine. You just need to know that "G to the R O T H E is a Beast From Da Big East"

So there you have it, just a few suggestions that will keep the Bears hilariously relevant, if not competitive, if Cutler should go down. Because Todd Collins will do neither.

Well, there's plenty that you can take away from the first half that the starters played on Saturday night (all of it hasty, reactionary, and based on a ludicrously small sample size as all good opinions are), starting with:

-HOLY SHIT CHRIS WILLIAMS IS AWFUL AND JAY CUTLER WILL GET KILLEDZ, OMGZ!Yeaaah. All the excuses in the world (and I've got some stashed somewhere...did I mention they're trying like, a new zone blocking scheme?) can't hide the fact that Kamerion Wimbley absolutely wrecked Chris Williams' shit. Wimbley went under, around, and straight by Williams while making Cutler's life a living hell. That just can't happen. I'm really shocked at this, as at no point even in his relatively weak showing at right tackle last year, and especially not in his stellar end of season run at left tackle, did Chris ever look this overmatched. I can only hope the SOB was out drinking whiskey out of the navel of a co-ed on Friday night and just had a Rex Grossman on New Year's Eve style nonchalance toward a meaningless exhibition game in August. Otherwise, yikes.

-Urlacher suffered an injury that could simply have been a cramp and probably would have kept playing had said injury occured during the regular season, but hey, that's no reason not to overreact and describe him as fragile and unable to finish a game, right Rick Telander?

- All of those bullshitpuffpieces about Matt Forte looking like a new man may not have been bullshit puff pieces.The 89 yard run was a thing of beauty that combined a perfect play call with perfect blocking and Forte absolutely burned the defense with his speed. However, Forte averaged 5 yards per carry on his other 4 rushes as well and several times used a quick burst to get out of the backfield and turn what would have been a loss last year into a pretty good gain. He's ready to go, and here's hoping he can stay healthy and keep Chester Taylor as a third down specialist.

-Johnny Knox is still really freaking good.That's really all there is to it.

-Martz knows how to use Devin HesterHester had a nice 29 yard reception (although he dropped another ball that hit him in the hands) and had two solid runs on end-arounds. Martz seems to have a much better grasp on when to run those things than Ron Turner did.

-Jay Cutler will be really good if he can stay aliveJay is clearly pretty comfortable in this offense. He moved the ball well despite being brutalized. Although he was only 7/15 (46.7%), Hester and Olsen dropped easy passes that would have put him at 9/15 (60%). As it was, he finished with a 90.7 rating and his touchdown toss to Knox (after extending the play) was a thing of beauty. He also had a nice 11 yard scramble.

-The defensive line looked goodYes, the Raiders have a notoriously horse shit offensive line. However, after that first drive Campbell was harassed mercilessly like he should be behind that line and was just 5/15 with an interception and a sack/fumble after starting 5/5. Less mobile quarterbacks would probably have been sacked...well, about as often as Cutler was.

-Greg Olsen will still cause my blood to boil with regularity.Did you enjoy the juxtaposition of Greg Olsen failing to plow through a smaller defender for a first down followed shortly thereafter by a Raiders drive being extended when tight end Zack Miller (listed as the exact same size (6'5'', 255) as Greg) plowed through a bunch of smaller defenders? Yeah, me neither. Olsen also ended a drive by dropping a pass that hit him right in the middle of his hands, because G-Reg don't like 'em easy, baby. He's soft and I hate him. I'll also bitch incessantly if Martz doesn't throw to him, because I like Having and Eating when it comes to my cake.

-I'm not going to lie, I was drunk the entire second half.And Dan LeFevour looked like total garbage.

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